AN IRANIAN TRAP

I increasingly believe that Israel may be in danger of falling into a trap contrived by the Iranians. The mullahs have clearly shown their hand when every other proxy they have starts attacking Israel. It is quite likely that they planned and encouraged the hideous Hamas attack on Israel that was so over-the-top in its evil brutality that it would certainly force Israel to respond. In this case then Hamas are nothing more than disposable, albeit all-too-wiling puppets, of Iran, which clearly has no qualms in sacrificing Palestinians to advance their overall strategy. 

It is both proper and just that Israel has responded to this atrocity, but at the same time it is for the better that they have slowed a massive incursion into Gaza. It is not that punishment should be put off at all, and they should continue to destroy Hamas as a military force, but the far more dangerous, and far more direct Iranian threat is really via Hezbollah. If they can keep Hamas at bay with the current effort, I think it would be wiser to continue to fake preparation for a full invasion and instead prepare to use maximum force against Hezbollah. 

That is something the US can and should support directly. They have an overdue reckoning for the murder of so many Americans over the years that must be avenged. Furthermore they are a clear extension of the rotten Iranian regime, which almost certainly obtain a nuclear weapon if they are not prevented here and now, and furthermore they are the most likely entity to actually use the bomb were they to get it. 

We don’t know what the Iranian intentions were, but there is no question that they have orchestrated the present conflict, knowing there would be retaliation. So it would be wise to move more cautiously before a shoe drops from the other foot in order to get a better handle on what their true plot consists of. That there is one, carefully contrived, is beyond the shadow of a doubt. Once there is clarity it may be time to kill the snake at its head. 

WHEN THINGS AREN'T WHAT THEY SEEM TO BE

Yesterday I received an email news headline from The NY Times stating that Israel had bombed a hospital in Gaza killing 500+ innocent people. Other rotten media outlets also ran with the story, which turned out to be patently false as Israel then produced clear evidence that the rocket came from Islamic Jihad in Gaza itself. 

 But by then the truth didn’t matter as Hamas seized upon the phony story in a propaganda push leading to hostile demonstrations around the world. Even though the truth is clear, there are many people who believe what they want to believe, oblivious to factual reality, as well a  more sinister parties who deliberately ignore the truth. 

 

The media again is clearly at fault for not bothering to fact check, accepting Hamas propaganda as truth. But far worse is the doubling down and prolongation of the lies. We see this over and over. The stories claiming Donald Trump was a Russian operative were patently false, but they were repeated over and over again as gospel truth because people who virulently oppose him want to believe it to be true, regardless of the facts. To this day, despite conclusive evidence, there are politicians and other people repeating this big lie. On the other side you also have people who continue to believe that the election was stolen without any clear evidence of anything that would have altered the election outcome. 

 

These kinds of things go on now constantly beyond mere credulity to beliefs that if it’s not true it ought to be, given that whomever or whatever is so bad. When stories circulated that people from Asia were being targeting and assaulted many liberals wanted to believe it was the work of white racists, becoming deeply disturbed or in denial when it became clear that most of these activities were propagated by black people. Unfortunately this mentality is more widespread than it has ever been despite supposedly higher education, which is now failing miserably in teaching basic deliberative thought processes, critical analysis, and virtually any rational process so that no one is made to feel “uncomfortable.” 

Ordinary people may respond to what they are fed, but what is unforgivable is the extent to which peopled who ought to know better, and who are in positions that enable them to find the actual truth if they bother to look for it, continue to uncritically or deliberately promote and reinforce lies. The extent to which ideological comfort or preferences trump factual reality in American media is appalling. Here we have the NY Times, presuming to be the gold standard of journalism, frequently and unashamedly promoting this kind of nonsense, and when the truth emerges beyond question the corrections or retractions are only to be found deep within paragraphs and pages of the paper. This is true of virtually all major news media; seldom if ever will they tell you that they were wrong or misrepresented the truth. It is clear that today “journalism” doesn’t exist. 

It is no wonder that the media is at an all-time low in public respect and approval, because even people who engage in wishful thinking know that there is constant distortion and fabrication. This is going to continue as long as no price is paid for lax standards, minimal effort, and flagrant transgressions. 

Under these conditions we can expect more and more stories casting Israel in the worst possible light as this conflict expands. The initial cause of it all will be forgotten and calls for cease-fire and "peace" will grow louder. Intelligent people will know enough to critically examine stories before jumping to conclusions, and discount the words of those who do. For it is just as likely for things not to be what they seem to be initially as they are to be true. 

 

 

 

 

DISASTERS ABROAD AND AT HOME - 2

 2. CLOSER TO HOME

Those who remain baffled as to how so many lower income people have gravitated towards Trump are simply oblivious to the facts on the ground. For them rising prices for basic necessities are not at all burdensome, and even welcome to the extent that it facilitates the realization of their loftier social goals. This really registered on me yesterday when I went to the supermarket with my wife, with the same sort of dread that undoubtedly is shared by these very same people. 

But it is impossible to ignore the higher prices of basic necessities that is so apparent to people who are now barely getting by paycheck to paycheck, and who must studiously consider every purchase and how it impacts their resources. They continue to work and pay taxes while an increasing share of the people in this country do neither. It is really rich to hear over the supermarket loudspeaker about how this or that product being promoted is “sustainable” in origin, as if that mattered at all to people who are concerned far more with how produce prices have doubled. Then “Hispanic Heritage” is duly noted in emphasizing products from Puerto Rico, which is about the only homeland of people appreciating this sort of patronizing nonsense, in a country where the preponderant population with Spanish surnames is Mexican in origin, as are the promoted products. 

That sort of detail is inconsequential for those who have the privilege of forming words that others must hear;  words that are even more inconsequential to the life they are living day to day. So of course these are people who, as Hillary Clinton stated outright, need to be “reprogrammed,” the sort of notion you increasingly hear in left-wing circles. They have already accomplished this to a disturbing extent with our young people. 

But what these enlightened idiots fail to realize is that dismissive contempt flows both ways, or that they have opened the door to being reprogrammed themselves, which they richly deserve. All of the institutions they have taken control of and perverted can now be purged by the rising tide of anger they have precipitated. Given how clear their intentions to control others has become, and how awful the consequences have been, their just rewards are overdue. 

The only saving grace for those at fault is the ineptitude of the Republicans in articulating what is a very clear case. Public disenchantment is palpable but they have thus far failed to explain the connection between Democrat policies and the consequences people are facing. Unless and until that responsibility is clearly established things will remain muddled and we will continue to flounder at a time when we can ill afford to. Things are still likely to get worse before they get better. 

DISASTERS ABROAD AND AT HOME - 1

1. THE WORLD




It is fairly obvious to people outside of the Biden administration that the Iranians are behind the vicious, savage attacks on Israel, which has justly responded accordingly in what is likely to be an ever-expanding war. Only now do they say they stand unwavering with Israel, notwithstanding the dangerously diminished capacity of our military to help as we are stretched thin around the world. 




 In re-establishing the Obama policies of bolstering Iran in return for “cooperation,” to the detriment of our allies in the region, they have only brought about yet another catastrophe on the world. The destruction they engineered in this country is bad enough, but even worse is how they have managed to botch virtually everything everywhere else in the world. They managed, to our everlasting shame, and without consulting with our allies, to get away with the obscenity of the Afghanistan debacle they caused, as well as green-lighting a “small incursion” by the Russians into Ukraine. 




They cut off Netanyahu, the most dynamic and effective leader in the western world, and insulted and alienated our Arab friends, whose relations and cooperation with Israel had been warming thanks to the Trump-inspired Abraham Accords. Then they debased themselves by going back and begging the Arabs to mitigate the oil crisis they themselves had created. 




The prime beneficiaries of all of this has been the Iranian mullahs, who clearly fear and seek to disrupt Arab-Israeli cooperation. If we had stuck to our principles  the popular uprisings in Iran might have succeeded had we provided aid and encouragement. Instead no help or support was given, leaving the evil regime intact and empowered. Instead of seizing the opportunity ourselves, it is the Iranians who have done so in the vacuum we have left, and there will be no peace in the region unless and until that menace is eliminated. They again outmaneuvered the Great Satan.




This fumbling weakness and inconsistency has resulted in a far more dangerous and unstable world than the one they inherited. It is also now clear that the Chinese Communists will never have a better opportunity to seize Taiwan given that we are now getting bogged down in wars in Europe and the Middle East while our military capabilities have been seriously degraded. There is virtually no chance at the present time that we can prevent this. Whatever you may think of Donald Trump, none of this would have happened under his stewardship. 




This administration will likely now backtrack and do the opposite of what they were steadfast in before now that the wind has conflated into a hurricane, and yet once again they may be able to spin this to their advantage and obscure their seminal role in generating it all, just as they have on the border.  But what is desperately needed is a clear and consistent strategy to oust the mullahs once and for all. Unfortunately that is probably beyond their capabilities, no matter what they may now say, but at least Netanyahu has the presence of mind to not trust them. Consequently he is the one who is going to be determining the direction of things thanks to the confusion and lack of clarity in our present regime, which will now be too sheepish to buck the congress and Israelis on these matters, and that is not a bad thing. 

What if the Roman Empire never fell? How would this change most of our history today?

(Here is some history you probably never knew. I quickly drafted this response to a Quora question, but thought it might be of more general interest).

The Roman Empire did not fall until 1453, when the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople. Emperor Constantine had moved the capitol to the Greek city of Byzantium because of its excellent geographic, strategic, and central location, calling it New Rome, although at that point the empire was then split between eastern and western halves until the west collapsed in the fifth century. Subsequently renamed Constantinople, it then became the center of the world and continued long after the city of Rome itself declined sharply as the locus of empire shifted. Attempts, sometimes successful, were made to reclaim parts of the west. Indeed the name of the city itself continued until the cataclysm of World War I.

In addition, Justinian was the last Emperor to use Latin rather than Greek, which prevailed for another eight centuries, or far longer than Rome itself. There was never a “Byzantine Empire.” That was a far later German concoction in order to legitimate their own “Holy Roman Empire, which, as Voltaire once said, was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire, What actually existed, as I have suggested elsewhere, was not something “Byzantine,” but rather a Greco-Roman Empire that lasted for a millennium. This is still confused and not well known due to the ignorance and prejudice of northwestern Europeans towards the south.

Thus, the Roman Empire did not fall or disappear the way you have been led to believe. In fact, if the empire began with Augustus, the Rome-based portion only lasted for a bit more than four centuries, while the Eastern Roman Empire continued for another thousand years, and all the people in the empire, including the Greeks, referred to and considered themselves Romans until the very end. The empire itself was polyglot as it always was, but the dominant language was Greek. Thus, while the “Middle Ages” or medieval period happened in the west, which was still backward, that was not the case in the east, in what in fact was the bulk of the empire, which continued a thriving, but heavily Christianized civilization. Thus, in the year 1000 Constantinople had a population of over a million people.

The original Roman Empire was far better at practical things, particularly organization, administration, functional engineering, etc. than the quarrelsome Greeks, who otherwise brilliantly developed and dominated culture, art, science, philosophy, etc. Romans provided the critical stability, legal and social infrastructure that was previously lacking in an otherwise largely Greek world that had been established by Alexander and his successors. As a result, Roman law, justice and organization provided the framework which sustained an otherwise largely Greek cultural entity.

The empire would not have fallen had it not been for the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) which, instead of going to Jerusalem to fight Muslims attacked other Christians via Venetian ships and encouragement. The barbarian Knights/Crusaders literally destroyed the city of Constantinople, pillaging and worse, burning down much of the city while the Venetians, at least having some artistic sense, carted off a lot of treasures that you still see in St. Marks to this day. The crusaders took over what was left of the city setting up their own “empire” for a few decades until the Romans finally reclaimed it, but in a much-weakened state. Thus, by the time the Turks finally conquered the city in 1453 with new long-range cannons, there were only about 50,000 people left there. That is when the Roman Empire finally fell, in its Greco-Roman-Christian incarnation.

Given true history then, if the empire hadn’t fallen it is quite possible that Greek would still be the common language, you might be speaking it, and the European world would be very different. The “old” nations of Europe after all, have only existed for around five centuries. They really ascended after the fall of the City and the “renaissance” that followed, (another retroactively coined term), instilled to a considerable extent by Greek refugee scholars who fled to the Italian city-states, which welcomed then as teachers, given their thirst for knowledge and ancient manuscripts.

Many other things would be different, starting with religion. In the empire the church was subordinate to the Emperor, and less powerful than in the west, where given the power vacuum, the Bishop of Rome, or Pope, was able to claim supremacy. Consequently, if the empire had continued the church would not have had so much power, and it is likely there would never have been a Protestant Reformation. Regions would have had their own Patriarchs. There is no way to know how geography would have taken shape, given uncertainty as to how far the empire might have reached, or how competent it would have been, but at its maximum it could have stretched over all of Europe. Alternatively, it could have been smaller, as it continued to fend of endless barbarian invasions from the east, allowing other powers to emerge in the west anyway, but possibly without the virulent nationalism that eventually developed and led to catastrophic wars and mass murder in the last century.

Much would depend on whether the empire could regain Italy, which was essential to the emergence of modern Europe. (In 1500 Italy was richer than all of western Europe combined and more culturally advanced). Since it was then divided into competing city-states in the fashion of ancient Greece, that might have transpired if the empire was relatively free from barbarian invasions. Slavs, at least in the south were already being absorbed before the fall of the empire and thus would likely still be integrated. Unknowns are how the Russians, or more importantly the Germans might have emerged. But generally, the empire had always done a great job of absorbing and integrating other peoples, until the rise of Islam.

If the empire had remained strong it is unlikely that the Arabs would have conquered what was then European Christian north Africa and Egypt, or even much of what is now called the “middle east,” which would have remained Christian and Roman, linked to the west via Constantinople. The empire took the brunt of Muslim invasion, thus protecting the west for centuries, and if not for the Fourth Crusade could have grown stronger and more powerful and Europe would not have been threatened or invaded. In addition, Persian culture might still exist, possibly as yet another empire.

Greek rationalism did not disappear as the church in the east largely reconciled itself with it and focused on spiritual matters. Consequently, the church would not have been able to significantly thwart scientific progress.

Europe, including a good portion of the east would still dominate the world. and remain centered in Constantinople. They would likely still have found the Americas, but development might have been different, possibly without African slavery, among other things. The culture would be more advanced and sophisticated, but economic growth might not be as robust, given a different emphasis and outlook, and without a “Protestant ethic” but rather a sort of merchant mentality. Higher education might not have been found in universities as we know them, but rather closer to the academic format of the ancient world, more focused on the development of the mind and learning.

Ultimately we cannot know because of vicissitudes of one-man rule. There can be a great ruler and then a terrible ruler. You can have a Marcus Aurelius or a Caligula. So given different personalities there is no way to know, and that can be precarious and lead to instability or conflict until someone else consolidates power. What we can learn clearly from history is the less power we surrender to others over us the better off we are.

Finally, the Fourth Crusade was clearly the worst disaster in western history even beyond World War I if only because the latter might never have happened if the empire hadn’t fallen. Such a general and vague question can lead to endless possibilities and alternatives, but in the end all that is left is what actually happened.

THE LATE JAMES BUCKLEY WAS A GREAT HUMAN BEING

James Buckley, who recently passed away at age 100 was the finest gentleman I ever met. He improbably was elected Senator from New York on a Conservative Party ticket due to a three-way race after an earlier unsuccessfully attempt I also worked on. This was at a time when the party was thriving due to his brother Bill’s earlier NYC Mayoral race, (another three-way contest, which had the unfortunate result of electing John Lindsay Mayor). At the time the Republican Party was still dominated by “liberal” or Rockefeller Republicans, so the Conservative Party was established to provide an alternative, and quickly became the third largest party in the state.

Bill was acerbic at times, but the older brother rarely uttered an unkind word about anyone, and was a thoroughly decent human being. It still makes me angry to recall the remarks of the sore-loser Democrat candidate, one Richard Ottinger, who griped that at least two out of three people voted for “decency.” There is great irony in the degree to which he was so off-target in the case of this good and gracious man, and to just whom the word “decency” really applied, But that was how the left continuously tried to demonize and delegitimize conservatives in those days, to no avail.

Unfortunately these days you rarely encounter anyone with Jim Buckley’s class and demeanor, especially in the upper reaches of power-holders. He was not driven by personal ambition, nor did he crave power, which enabled him to be refreshingly detached, thoughtful and principled. That is the kind of person we desperately need in office in today’s shallow, coarse, and dumbed-down political environment. He lived a long, honorable, and fulfilling life, and what can better be said of a man?

SMOKE SIGNALS

The recent super smoke particles coming down from Canada a few days ago that smothered us here on the East Coast illustrates the folly of the climate change cult. Some less intelligent people were claiming this was due to global warming, when forest fires are in fact a recurring natural phenomenon and no such connection has been established. 

I think it shows us two things: 1. A nuclear attack anywhere is going to affect everyone everywhere as it permeates the atmosphere. Something far away can still reach you. 

2. More importantly it is insane to keep self-destructing over “climate change” when just one big volcano could easily blanket the earth completely and significantly lower temperatures for years, and of course volcanos are completely natural phenomena.  It has happened many times in the past, including in recorded history. There are plenty of volcanos around the world that could pop at any time and change the whole climate trajectory. So it was that volcanos on the other side of the world ushered in the “little ice age” in Europe. In recent times we have been fortunate enough to have not experienced a super-volcano. But sooner or later another one will occur, people will be bundling up heavily, the sky will darken, and crops will fail. 

The only people benefiting from this climate hysteria are the green crony capitalists gobbling up many of your tax dollars when not sending them off to China, where they could care less about climate. It is one of the greatest scams in history. 

Furthermore volcanos are only one natural phenomenon among many that could radically change things. It is folly to prepare for many decades in the future based upon current assumptions. That is simply "presentism," and consistently wrong. What exists today will be gone tomorrow given constant change. It is going to take a lot of effort to undo the damage they have done our environment with shortsighted green projects like windmills that are killing millions of birds, and probably more and more whales as well. The hardest part is reversing the brainwashing that has been going on for the past few decades. Kids today have swallowed this whole and accept it as gospel, when it is full of holes. When this all becomes more obvious many, many people are going to be angered by the extent to which they have been bamboozled.  

Photo my wife took from our house on the Long Island Sound.

AN IGNORANT, MIS-EDUCATED, SEMI-LITERATE CULTURE

As an addendum to the latest Cleopatra flap, I find the coverage of the "controversy" even more depressing in supposedly serious media, across the board. I have read article, after poorly written article, by journalists abysmally ignorant about history and worse not at all interested in seeking the truth. We have a country where even people coming out of the "best" schools cannot write a coherent sentence, and who are only dimly capable of distinguishing between facts and feelings. The latter is what drives things for them.  How does something square with their worldview on “racism?”  If inconvenient, they simply ignore the truth and go with a fictional narrative they find more congenial. What matters today is not the truth, nor the facts, but rather the spin, or “narrative” that prevails. This world of distortion permeates everything from the White House to the local news. 

 

But when it comes to Cleopatra, we are referencing one of the most well-documented figures in history. To suggest, as many have that, well, "we just don't know," is to deliberately obscure the truth to avoid hurtfully puncturing the racial fantasies of some people. Worse, I have read some obscure "expert" (the only one sought out by an idiot reporter) claim that even if she was Greek she couldn't possibly be "white," or fair, dismissing the world's leading Egyptologist (Hawass) suggestion that she might even have been blonde, when, in fact, people in northern Greece are often blonde and tall like Alexander, so it is certainly not beyond the realm of possibility. Instead, when the facts ruin the fantasy, it gets ridiculously redefined, so that the original Greek authors of European civilization are no longer considered European and thus no longer “white” in this crazy worldview.

 

The Egyptians are incensed because of attempts to depict them as sub-Saharan Africans or as being closely related to them. They are not, and even when very briefly ruled by black people of Kush or Nubians, those rulers had more aquiline features found in northeast Africa and had little more in common with West Africans, (from whom most American blacks are descended), than they would have had with Europeans. 

 

It is a sad commentary on the level of ignorance and credulity in contemporary society that several decades after Newsweek ran a cover with the ridiculous, and universally debunkeduestion “Was Cleopatra black?” there is even moreignorance today. It is a consequence of the self-hatred of radicalized “scholars” constantly aimed at poisoning and undermining our great western civilization, going back to its foundation in the Ancient Greek world through all subsequent periods culminating in the free world of today. 

 

Our heritage is not just being stolen; it is being destroyed. Our culture, as well as the entire western hemisphere is an offshoot of European civilization. The more they can obscure that the less we will know of who we really are, which is what has facilitated their attempts to remake and redefine us in accordance with the phony ideological group identities they have conjured up. But this cultural suicide being forced on us will in no way uplift supposedly marginalized groups, on whose behalf it is being proffered. It will only bring all of us down. While the “Anglosphere” has gone overboard on this, fortunately most of Europe, is not buying it, nor for that matter, is the rest of the world.  If we do not reverse this disastrous trajectory, our country will again, over time, come to be perceived as little more than a remote backwater populated by dimwitted people. 

 

There is no doubt in my mind that a 19th century high school graduate was more articulate and better educated than graduates of today’s universities. From the time I was teaching five decades ago to the present we have gone from dumb to dumber. Sure, there are, as there always has been, a small number of very bright people that really drive scientific, technical and intellectual progress for everyone else. But the leveling, “equity” ideology is increasingly destroying opportunities that enable such people emerge and excel. That costs everyone and we are left only with mass mediocrity. Without cultural restoration the point of no return will soon be reached. 

 

In that case America is over. 

 

  

CLEOPATRA: THE HISTORICAL REALITY

 It is a sad commentary on the level of historical ignorance that prevails today, especially in the USA, where gullible people easily respond to narratives that patently are not true. Thus it has become necessary to explain who one of the most well-known and documented figures in history was, due to myths that have been proffered about her without any foundation or evidence. The last Cleopatra, a name born by many predecessors, was simply not “black,”as most recently suggested by a Netflix “documentary” based upon falsehoods and wishful thinking. 

Cleopatra was ethnically Greek, descended from Ptolemy, one of Alexander the Great’s Macedonian generals who came to power in Egypt after his death. She was clearly not black.She was European. Nor was she even particularly dark. Macedonians from northern Greece are mostly fair-skinned. The city of Alexandria was founded by Alexander himself and run by Greeks (although with a multinational population), for three hundred years. It became the greatest Greek city in the Hellenistic world, where numerous brilliant scientists and philosophers did their work. Cleopatra was herself a brilliant woman who spoke several languages; in fact she was the first and only Ptolemaic ruler to bother learning the Egyptian language. She also strongly identified with Egypt, adapting its religion and many aspects of its culture in the Pharaonic tradition. Her affairs with Caesar and Mark Anthony were also political, as she strove to maintain the security of her wealthy country. But as is well known, she wound up on the losing side in a Roman power struggle where the Roman Republic was transformed into the Empire under Augustus, and so absorbed Egypt. 

 Alexandria is located on the Mediterranean Sea and was part of the Mediterranean world, as was all of north Africa. That region was in no sense “African” in the narrower sense in which the term is misused today to signify what is actually only sub-Saharan or black Africa. In addition to the great Egyptian civilization it was settled by Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans, and even Germans, who established the Vandal kingdom there. The population was in no sense black, nor were the local Berbers, some of whom to this day have blue eyes. Again the entire region was Mediterranean, and the Greco-Roman term “Africa” was originally used to refer to this region and its cultures- North Africa. 

Much of the falsehoods and confusion of today are based upon a truly idiotic fallacy, which is the notion that the term, now used to  refer to the entire continent of Africa, is co-terminus, equivalent, and  identical to black Africa. It isn’t, and indeed residents of the north vociferously object to being labeled black, especially the Egyptians. This rankles the really stupid producer of this Netflix travesty, who says that the Egyptians need to learn that they are in Africa, as though that somehow makes them black, which, as explained above is nonsensical. All across north Africa from Egypt to Morocco the population is simply not black, genetically, culturally or historically. This has been obscured, to a considerable extent by the Arab conquest and conversion to Islam, which detached the region from the intimacy it had with Europe. 

 So the result is a production based upon total ignorance and wishful thinking that is rationally unsustainable. In fact the scorn has been universal, from the Egyptians to even the leading scholar in Nigeria, who has called out this abomination for its deception, while pointing out that black Africans have many cultures of their own to be studied and appreciated. They do not feel slighted by the truth and make no such claims. Indeed everywhere else in the world there is a clear understanding of true history, except for grossly miseducated and gullible Americans. Recognition of the truth in no way demeans or diminishes black Americas. Stealing other people’s cultures is a sign of weakness and insecurity, not strength and no ones benefits from the promulgation of falsehoods. It only invites ridicule. Shame of Netflix for promoting these lies, misleading the public, and forfeiting any credibility. 

A new documentary by the world’s leading Egyptologist Dr. Zahi Hawass (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100044332304573) tells the truth based on historical fact, not fantasy. It is now viewable on YouTube. Looking forward to seeing it. It is also supposed to be on Amazon but I can’t find it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3_4mEuVONA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdGThahx5sE

 

THE PARTISAN PERSECUTION OF DONALD TRUMP

 It is now ludicrous to suggest that there is any longer an impartial system of justice in this country. It should be obvious to everyone in the partisan legal harassment of Donald Trump, especially in places like here in New York. In addition to the local Manhattan DA and state AG, he faced a ridiculous civil suit from a woman claiming he had in some way harmed her decades ago. The jury of ruled against him in short order to no one’s surprise. The question his whether there is any legitimacy at all to this legal system. 

There was and remains zero chance that Trump could ever get a fair hearing from a Manhattan jury. That was my own experience  over two decades ago under another kind of political attack when I realized there was no way I could get a fair verdict in Manhattan and had to settle for an agreement. These are people with a visceral hatred of Donald Trump and incapable of fair judgement due to ideological blinders. They see all aspects of life as political and so have politicized everything, thereby ruining everything. 

Does anyone think the verdict would not be different almost anywhere else in the country, or even elsewhere in New York?  Manhattan is out of touch not only with the rest of the country but even the rest of the city and certainly the rest of the state.This was the only borough that voted for some obscure left-wing woman instead of Mayor Adams in the Democratic primary. There is not a single elected Republican official left in Manhattan at the city, state, or federal level (where once there was a congressman, state senator, and a couple of state assembly and city council representatives). The Manhattan GOP once exercised disproportionate influence. Now it basically no longer exists. Unfortunately Manhattan media also dominates communications in this country, in their parochial worldview, warping perceptions of who we really are as a people. 

I had for a time hoped that someone else might be the Republican nominee for President, only because they might possibly win with a larger margin and lower the temperature, but now given the constant harassment by a legal system that no longer has much legitimacy left Trump may be the only one who is stalwart enough to rectify the situation and clean house. It is indeed ironic that throughout his entire term of office he never once abused his power or used the government to pursue political enemies, while the Democrats have been doing so constantly thereby undermining the entire justice system. Trump may be the only one to set things right; the only other possibility would be Robert Kennedy Jr. who is equally loathed by the establishment that is doing its best to marginalize or ignore him because they know that he, like Trump is willing to take on the rotten elite that is ruining this country and bring about real reform.

 I don’t think that Trump should have participated in any of this political  litigation. He should have refused to recognize the legitimacy of it, thereby unmasking the partisan rot and leaving the left powerless to do anything about it. Had he remained in Florida Governor DeSantis would never have extradited him to a hostile jurisdiction. By cooperating to any degree Trump is confirming the legitimacy of a rotten system that no longer has any. But for once he took the more restrained option, probably to avoid a total break at this time, but if he is elected again there is no doubt that he will clean house this time around. 

By so blatantly persecuting Trump the left has strengthened him immeasurably. It is time that other potential candidates step back and save their fire for another day, unless something really does reduce his viability, which seems less and likely, but in that case they could always step in later. But given the serious injustices being perpetrated at this time there must be solidarity. There was a chance that he might have faded away, but by so grossly and unjustly overplaying their hand they have restored him to the center of everything and richly deserve whatever consequences result.